Hello Humans!

Digging into our personal life today because it’s a valid question to answer today.

We have three amazing cats. The twins (Pikachu + Pichu) turn 2 in March, and Raichu just turned 2 last September! They are my babies, and I am #CatMomAF

How to pronounce our cats names if you were not into Pokemon.
They are the complete evolution of “Pikachu”
Raichu: Rye-Chew
Pikachu: Peek-A-Chew
Pichu: Pee-Chew

When we first brought the twins (Pikachu + Pichu) home, Raichu was very stand offish and not exactly happy… which if you know anything about cats that is totally normal because they aren’t like native wolves and travel in packs. Cats are loners, or stick with their pride (Family) and don’t trust outsiders.

To show Raichu that the twins were going to be part of our family and she needed to deal with it, well it took patience and about 5 weeks.

Every cat is different, and this is no promise that two cats will ever get along. I mean don’t tell me there are a few humans you know that you will never get along with.

Step by step – Do not rush this process

• Do not let *New cat* see or interact with *old cat*
• Keep the new cat in a separate room that the old cat doesn’t go in / isn’t allowed in
• Keep of course a separate liter box / food for new cat to use as they get used to the smells of their new home
• Old cat can continue to use current box / food bowls

We kept the twins in an extra large dog kennel (because they were still babies 8 weeks when we brought them home) in our office and kept the door close away from Raichu during this process. Raichu wasn’t allowed in this room so she never had it in her mind that this was her “territory”.

• Keep them in separate rooms and let them get used to each other smells without them seeing each other
• They will also get used to each others sounds / meows this way
• Do not let them interact still
• With keeping the new cats safe, (dog kennel), let the old cat see that there is another cat living in the space but do not let them touch each other just start slowly showing them to each other

The process of introducing seeing each other took about 2 weeks, you don’t want to rush because it could ruin everything. Do not let them paw each other or smell each other yet as much as you think they are going to hit it off, most times they wont because the old cat will feel invaded.

• Play with the cats at separate time, do not give one cat more or less attention
• Switch rooms on the cats so that they can roam around – alone – and smell the other animal
• Then put them back in their respective spaces
• Now we can move on to attempting to let them be next to each other…

This is kind of like a psychology experiment but it worked for us! Give your cats some sort of treat, train their brain that they get rewarded for joining together and becoming a family. We used Wet food because our cats are obsessed with it and wanted at least five minutes at a time of forcing them to be together but being nice to show there is not threat.

• Still keep new cat safe, behind a gate (or dog kennel) but give new cat and old cat the treat next to each other
• Make sure they can’t harm each other but that they can see and smell each other
• Give the treat meal to them both at the same time and then immediately separate the new cat and old cat back to their spaces where they can’t interact
• Repeat process for 1-4 weeks as needed
• As they start to pick up on the fact that they get wet food when they are together you can start to take away the barrier between old cat and new cat and have them eat together

Just like humans, a lot can be fixed by sharing a meal together.

Don’t force the cats too quickly, I know it sucks having to keep them separate but in the end it’s worth it because Pika + Rai are now best of friends. All of our cats cuddle together, or with us. They still bicker because that is what siblings do! No death matches, and that was the goal!

• Smell
• Sight
• Treat with barrier
• Treat without barrier
• Slow and steady!

If you need help or any questions about it, let me know! I’m happy to help another cat mom!

Love, jamie + mark